koike

Sunday, January 22, 2006

In Asia

There is deeply an economic gap between developed and developing countries in Asia. As you see the relation between ASEAN and Japan, you will soon understand it.Japan, which is a developed country, supplies ASEAN countries with a lot of money as ODA. It paid 3,921 million dollars to them in 1999 and that was 37, 3% of the total amount of ODA, and to the whole Asian area it paid 63, 1% of the total.On the contrary, there are some countries which need ODA from Japan for example, Myanmar and Cambodia. Myanmar’s GDP per capita is as 170 times as that of Singapore, which has an economic foundation like Japan but Myanmar and Cambodia don't have it and they can't make progress without ODA from Japan.Thus, we can't say that ASEAN and Japan cooperate with each other but Japan supports them economically and the gap has been kept.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Lord of War

I watched the movie" Lord of War", which described the tradesman of a lot of weapons all over the world. The man trafficed weapons with east and weast countries in the era of Cold War and after the collapse of the Soviet Union he sold a large number of weapons in the country, that had remained and have nowhere to go, for Africa under conflicts. In that way he got a great success and so much many while Interpoles were pursuing him.In the end, although he was got by the Interpols and brought to the U.S., which is his nationality, he was soon released by the pressure of the nation because the great country America had been the most powerful patron of Arms Traders.Personally that movie was so funny because that brilliant, admireble country was revealed itself.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Japan and Korea

I attended the lecture of the Korean ambassador given by Aoyamagakuin university yesterday. The theme was the construction of peace in Asia and the ambassador did his presentation, in which the historical relationship, a trade of each culture, and especially the difference of their perception for the past between Korea and Japan were referred to. As you know, that historical issues have badly impacted the present diplomacy in Asia and haven't been resolved yet, for example such problems as the worship of Yasukuni shrine and the servitude of Korean by Japan in the past.After his presentation, some people asked him questions and almost all of them were about Yasukuni. All of them said that Primeminister Koizumi shoud not go to the shrine because it gets the relationship in Asia worse and the ambassador of course stated that he didn't want Japan to remind Asia about the misery past and repeated it in his presentation, too.However, for another question what do you think about that the king of Korai, which is the ancient name of Korea, and his attendants were accepted by Japan long time ago when they escaped from the civil strife of Korai, the ambassador said he didn't know well about that and it was suspicious whether it was really happened. Although the person who asked him a question wanted to know what Korean people think about Japanese warm hearts to foreigners, which has been the nature of Japanese, the ambassodor didn't answer it.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The Arms Trade

There is a remarkable diversity in a trade of weapons between developed and developing countries. That is, exporters are developed countries such as the U.S., Russia, French, German, England while importers are diveloping one such as China, India, Greece, Turkey.Developing countries don't have technique to create weapons and so they can't help buying them while developed one can create a lot of newest weapons and keep selling them for their benefit. That vicious circle has been maintained by demand and supply of each countries, but I think that people should be conscious of a lot of ODA we are paying to developing countries, which can be used for buying weapons.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

The Intergeneration Gap

There exists diversity in some generations. For example between your parents and you, there would be quarrels some times about uninportant things due to the diversity of senses for anything in the world. That difference is caused by the transition of eras, so parents are always having trouble with handling their children and the children with persuading their parents.In such kind of problem too, the best way of resolving it is being generous for each other.

In a Drama

I watched the drama," Rondo" in which Japanese and Korean actors appeared. In the drama Japanese and Korean languages were flying and they acted as if they couldn't understand each other's words, so they maneged to express themselves by gestures. Of course we could see Japanese subtitles of Korean parts, but I was irritated with the air that they couldn't communicate with each other and for that Impatience the drama looked all the more interesting and attracted audience.I think it is difficult to adopt actors of different countries in a drama because of the diversity, language. However the drama was well composed of different languages and attractive for audience, so the drama has succeeded.

English in Diversity

When you talk to others of different countries in such diversity as a language or culture, you would use English as just a tool of communication because it is useful for many people and prevailing all over the world. However, is it strange that people tend to prefer English to their native languages? For example, recently J-Pop music often use English words as much as Japanese compared with that of years ago. What's more, people use English in daily conversation, which they cannot translate into their native languages.With this situation in mind, I think we should do use our mother toungue correctly and be proud of it even if English is convenient in quickly communicating with others, especially foreigners because we always belong to specific and different nations respectively.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Jewish People

Relating to that presentation another day, I would like to think about Jewish problems especially in Switzerland. Switzerland is called a permanently neutral country, but it doesn't always do justice. When the Nazis got in power in 1938, the influx of Jewish people from Germany into Switzerland began. At that time Switzerland asked Germany to stamp 'J' on Jewish passports so that it could see them from others and refused to accept them who were persecuted by the Nazis. Like this, even if that is just an example, we can see such a permanent neutral country as Switzerland doesn't always do the right things from the point of view humanitarianism or justice and Germany is not the only one country that has persecuted Jewish people.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Palestine and Israel

I reserched the Palestine and Israel for the presentation another day. There have been many conflicts between the two after WWⅡ for example four times middle-east wars. The most significant cause is the diversity of their religion. Palestine professes Islam while Israel professes Jewry and they want to get Jerusalem that is a sacred place for each religion.Though they entered into negotiation toward peace once, but now their peace talkes are frustrated and terrorism by Palestinian and reprisal by Israel are happened continuously.This is one example of diversity on a bad course.